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Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Copenhagen trip, Feb 2013

I have just got back from a very chilly, but fantastic few
days in Copenhagen with my lovely friend Emma.
It’s the first time I have been, and would recommend for a few days
exploring with great museums, galleries, shops and lots of pastries. The city was full of bakeries, cafes and
restaurants, and although it’s an expensive place, we found some excellent
affordable options - all very chic in the minimal Scandinavian way.

Hot dogs are popular, with stalls dotted around the centre,
selling some very good versions of the often grim fast food stalwart – we went
to Den Økologiske Pølsemand (translated as the organic hotdog man, or Døp for
short), next to the Round Tower in the city centre. The organic sausages come in toasted
sourdough buns, with onion, mustard, ketchup and lots of gherkins (around £4). It’s the best hotdog I’ve had, and definitely
worth searching out (great view from the top of the tower too).

One of the best areas we discovered for eating and drinking
was the trendy meatpacking area in Vesterbro .
We came across the buzzy Mother, which serves organic sourdough pizzas
(most around the £12-13 mark). We shared
one with salami and mascarpone , and the other with prosciutto, rocket and
pesto – both with nicely charred, chewy
bases and fresh tomato.

We didn’t come across lots of restaurants serving
traditional Danish food, but thought we needed to try smørrebrød(open
sandwiches on rye bread). We went to the
Royal Smushi Café (just near the central Strøget shopping street) to try their take of bite-sized
sandwiches with the attention to detail of sushi – hence their term ‘smushi’. The smoked salmon and egg custard smushi was
an expensive bite (£6ish for one), but the place has a fabulously over the top
interior, and the rich, caramel pecan and oat tart was good.

Copenhagen’s most famous restaurant is Noma, voted best in
the world. It is definitely out of our
price range and also unsurprisingly very booked up with waiting lists, but I
had read an article which had tips from the Noma chefs on where they eat on
their days off – much more accessible. Brunch
is big in Copenhagen, and we headed to Bodega, one of the chefs’ brunch
recommendations, on the edge of the famous Assistens cemetery
in the Nørrebro district.

This was the best value place we went, with really
delicious food – soft scrambled eggs with crispy bacon and warm rye bread, and
light, fluffy pancakes with home-made syrup and rhubarb and strawberry
compote. Our favourite place, and if we
were there longer we would also have returned for drinks in the evening (they
open til 5am with a DJ at the weekend).

Another of the places in this article was the rather
un-Danish La Galette (on Larsbjørnsstræde), run by two Frenchmen and serving
Galettes with proper Breton buckwheat.
The galettes were crispy around the edge, with tasty fillings including spinach,
cheese, egg and bacon (around £11).
Sweet crepes were also very good, topped with caramelised apples and
chocolate, almonds and chantilly.

There are fabulous bakeries all over the city, with buttery
pastries and lots of interesting breads.
A branch of the chain Lagkagehuset was near where we stayed and became
our breakfast spot. Soupy, rich hot
chocolate and delicious Snegl (snail cinnamon pastry with a blob of icing on
the top) set us up for the day. I’d
normally be put off by anything that’s a chain, but these seemed consistently
excellent. There was even a branch at
the airport for our farewell pastry.

We left Copenhagen feeling very full and content. But decided it was probably best for our
waistlines that we didn’t live there.